A bee sits on a dandelion bloom Monday in Traunstein, Germany. With more warm, sunny days like today in Richland County, it won’t be long before the weeds bloom here as well. / Associated Press

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News Journal

By 9 a.m. this morning the temperature at Mansfield’s Lahm Airport had already reached 61 degrees.

The forecast high temperature for the day is 76 degrees, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see some locations south and especially west of Mansfield hit 80 degrees later the way it’s going. Be aware, however, that all of north central Ohio is looking at an elevated risk of brush fires today.

Today will be our sixth straight day without precipitation, a break we really needed, but that combined with dry field fuels, low humidity and the sunshine and warm temperatures are responsible for the risk. Winds, however, will be light on Monday.

Rain is coming, but it’s in no hurry. A cold front well to our west has slowed down, and what’s more, it’s going to need a second front behind that to push it through Ohio. By the time that happens, we should be past daybreak on Tuesday. Given the timing of the rain, we probably won’t have to worry about any thunderstorms, and right now it doesn’t look like the low pressure system will be able to tap into copious Gulf of Mexico moisture.

Following the frontal passage our temperatures will cool down, but not drastically. Look for highs in the 50s on Tuesday and Wednesday. Through the seven-day forecast temps are expected to hover close to seasonal or maybe a little bit below. Showers will become likely again by Thursday night.

Although we appear to be past the real cold stuff for good now, watching the overnight low temperatures for frosts and freezes will be our focus for the next several weeks. While we all may feel an urge to get planting, the soil still needs to warm. And the average date of the last spring freeze for area locales is as follows – Ashland, May 4; Bucyrus, May 5; Fredericktown, May 7; Mansfield, May 9.

Finally, if the U.S. can make it through today without any tornado deaths – and no major storminess seems likely anywhere – this will be the latest we’ve made it into the year without any such fatalities. Reliable tornado records in the U.S. only go back to 1950, but this record, if we set it, is still fairly impressive.

Below are the weather statistics for Sunday, April 20 at my location 4 miles north-northwest of Fredericktown, Ohio: